She was lying on the floor and counting stretch marks
She hadn't been a virgin and he hadn't been a god
So she named the baby Elvis
to make up for the royalty he lacked
“It could never happen to me.” Isn’t that what every young person thinks? They are invincible. They could get away with anything. They’re smarter than anyone who tells them not to do something, and they’ll prove it. They would never get caught. Someone they loved would never die.
They would never get pregnant at the age of sixteen.
It could never happen to me.
I was the pretty, blonde girl, the one dating the older, popular guy. I was the one who other girls tried to imitate. I was Homecoming Queen, and soon to be Prom Queen, too, the equivalent of royalty in a selfish girl’s mind. I was invincible.
From then on it was turpentine and patches
From then on it was cold Campbell's from the can
As it turns out, pregnant girls don’t get the Prom Queen crown. Pregnant girls get kicked out of their childhood homes. Pregnant girls get stared at everywhere they go, as stranger’s judging eyes critically move from the swelling tummy to the bare finger.
It happened overnight, really—no pun intended. One day, I was “the pretty blonde.” The next, I was simply “pregnant girl.” In high school, hot news spreads faster than a brush fire. There was not one person in the school, not even the socially challenged, acne-faced kids with their waistbands up to their chests that didn’t stare at me in the halls. Not that I was able to stay in school very long.
They were just two jerks playing with matches
'Cause that's all they knew how to play
He had an angry streak when he wanted to, that’s for sure. The night I told him, he punched a hole in the wall of his little-boy bedroom. He then turned his fury to me, not excluding the violence. When he was done, he told me never to come back.
It’s funny how you can be so in love with someone, give them everything, and worship the ground they walk on, but the minute that something goes wrong, they turn into a completely different person. I pondered this as I watched my bones knit.
'Cause it's been turpentine and patches
It's been cold, cold Campbell's from the can
And they were just two jerks playing with matches
'Cause that's all they knew how to play
What they knew how to play
My arm was in a cast as I boarded the ferry. There was no reason for me to look behind as the boat pulled away from the harbor. Instead, my eyes fixated on my stomach. The captain was mercifully quiet, neither staring nor speaking. He just let me be.
My parents had disowned me. In a way, I couldn’t blame them. What influential family would want a broken, burnt daughter tarnishing their precious reputation? I knew what it was like to climb social ladders. Once you were on top, the fall was hard. So, somehow, I had scrounged up enough money to get away.
As land began to peek up over the horizon, nerves got the best of me. How on Earth was I going to explain to my new neighbors that I had learned the hard way that if you play with matches, you get burnt?
Elvis never could carry a tune
and she thought about this irony as she stared back at the moon
If I had never moved to Forget-Me-Not, I would never know the meaning of acceptance. I would never know how to move on. I would never know how to be truly strong.
People are kinder than society gives them credit for. You just have to know where to look.
From my room in the bar, the moon was fully visible. The light shone through the window, illuminating the cradle. As melancholy gripped me, I couldn’t help but wonder if the moon looked the same from my old point of view.
She was tracing her years with her fingers on her skin saying,
Well, why don't I begin again
The owner of the bar refused to take my money. He said that it was too lonely after the last customer went home, anyways. A child and her baby would bring some life to the place. He gave me odd jobs to do, to make myself feel important. Some would turn their nose up at the situation, saying that it was improper for a young girl to sleep at her older employer’s with her infant. But Griffin never so much as laid a hand on me. I have never believed that the gentle man was even capable of killing a fly.
At night, after the baby was asleep, I would curl up in bed. Often, I was too tired to even change out of my clothes, and I was usually asleep before my head hit the pillow. But once in a blue moon, I would have a chance to think before sleep claimed me. And the most common thought process always started with,
Why me?That was directly followed by,
Why not me?After all I'm still a jerk playing with matches
It's just that he's not around to play along
Yeah, I'm still a jerk playing with candles
Blowing out wishes, blowing out dreams
Just sitting here and trying to decipher what's written in Braille upon my skin
This skin...
On my sixteenth birthday, I got a car. On my seventeenth birthday, I signed a birth certificate.
When the pink line appeared on the pregnancy test, I thought that it erased any hope of a normal life for me. I forfeited my dreams by giving in to the man I thought I loved, who turned out to be a scared boy. But, in a way, it was my saving grace. The punishment for stupidity is the most precious gift in the world, and it’s not one that you can wrap in ribbons. It doesn’t just include the baby; it includes all the struggles and triumphs that come with it. I had to grow up in nine months, and I gave my childhood to my baby.
Every year, I light the candles on my baby’s birthday cake. Every night, as I undress, I look at the angry red lines on my stomach, scars from the amputation of my youth. And every day, I learn a little more about love, and happiness, and victory. Getting there took some work, but I would never go back.
